


Excuses, Excuses

by alphai



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Nonbinary Character, Other, Post-Canon, well post-tales anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-31 09:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6465238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphai/pseuds/alphai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trust is something you have to earn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excuses, Excuses

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually something ive been meaning to write for a while  
> if canon ends up contradicting this later i honestly wont care

It was rare for anyplace on Pandora to be silent. Some animal was always screeching, a gun was always firing, a bandit was always yelling. Pandora was a planet of motion and noise and _chaos_ and nothing really seemed to settle, as much as its inhabitants tried to pretend that it did. This constant flow of dangerous bullshit only made things even more uneasy for Rhys right now, as he sat next to Fiona in front of a holomap in the center of a bandit city that he thought no longer existed.

Even the computers on either side of the room seemed to quiet down for this meeting, letting him hear every tap of metal against metal as Zero watched the two of them from the doorway, drumming their steel-toed foot against the floor absently.

"When, uh..." Rhys started, his voice faltering when Zero turned to stare at him directly (he assumed, of course, not being able to tell what they were really looking at). "When did you say she would get here?"

"She will be here soon," Zero answered. "That's all you need to know now. Just wait for Lilith."

Rhys groaned slightly, both from fear at whatever Lilith was going to do to him and from annoyance at how uncomfortable this chair was. Being nervous only made him sit even more stiffly in it, which absolutely did not help.

"Isn't Lilith the one who ordered those two mercs to almost kill Athena?" Fiona asked, more to Rhys than to Zero.

"They are not mercs." The slight hint of annoyance in Zero's voice made Rhys flinch. "Brick and Mordecai are friends. But, yes, she did that."

"Why? What did Athena ever do to her?" Fiona had too much confidence with other Pandorans.

"That isn't really your business, is it?"

Rhys almost jumped out of his chair at the sudden voice, but he froze when the person who spoke walked into view.

Hyperion had told him enough about sirens. Most of what they had told him was that they were dangerous, volatile, and worth a lot of money if captured alive. He never thought he would see one in person, let alone this close to him.

"Can you stop staring at me like I'm some endangered species?" Lilith snapped, noticing Rhys' wide-eyed expression. She crossed the room and slammed her tattooed hand down onto the table, the sound so sudden that it seemed like it made the entire city shake. "You try anything, and you'll learn just why the most brutal bandit leaders down on the surface are afraid of us."

Rhys nodded, too scared to risk talking. Lilith exhaled slowly and straightened up again, crossing her arms in front of her chest and not taking her eyes of Rhys. Zero mimicked her stance, staying behind her.

"Zero told me that you're the ones who opened the last vault," Lilith continued. "You did it twice, actually. The first time, you almost kept us from saving Sanctuary from being hit with debris from a crashed space station."

"How did opening a vault somehow keep you from that?" Fiona kept her annoyed tone as she asked more questions. Rhys was just a little terrified to be sitting next to her.

"Because when vaults open," Lilith said, speaking slowly and enunciating each syllable to convey how much she wanted to kill both of them right now, probably. "All sirens on the planet feel it. Our tattoos start glowing and _burning_ , and that sensation is pretty goddamn distracting."

"S-sorry," Rhys muttered weakly. "We uh...we didn't know there were any sirens on the planet."

He could practically feel Lilith glaring at him.

"What? Hyperion didn't bother to tell you about me and Maya?" Lilith turned back to address Zero. "I guess that would have brought up too many questions about Jack's daughter, right?"

"Jack's daughter was a siren?" Rhys asked, cutting off any response Zero might have had.

"Yes. She asked us to...to take away her life source. We had to kill her." Zero had almost no emotion in their tone, but that almost sounded like regret.

"Jack used Eridium to enhance her siren abilities so he could use her to charge a vault key," Lilith elaborated for them. "She wanted to stop him just as much as we did, so she helped us break into her chamber and destroy the injectors that kept her alive."

Even Fiona was silent at this. Rhys shifted uneasily in his chair, turning his gaze downward.

"Jack didn't say anything about her being a si—" he started to say too himself, cutting off abruptly when he felt Fiona punch his leg under the table.

"What did you just say?" Lilith's tone made it clear that she was about five seconds away from turning Rhys into a smoldering pile of ash.

There was a silence that stretched on for far too long, and Lilith kept her eyes fixed on Rhys for the entirety of it. Maybe it was just their color, but Rhys could have sworn that they were glowing.

"So," Fiona said too calmly. "Can I be excused? I don't wanna be caught in the blast radius if you decide to kill him."

Lilith jabbed her thumb towards the doorway as a response, and Fiona muttered a 'thank you' before ducking out of the room. Rhys froze again, watching the way that Zero stepped forward to stand directly behind Lilith's shoulder.

"You...aren't going to finish interrogating her?" he asked.

"I trust Fiona a hell of a lot more than you, especially now. Jack has been dead since before all of this _bullshit_ with you started," Lilith said through her teeth. "So you're going to explain to me—to both of us—exactly what you mean by that."

Rhys almost laughed nervously, not sure which vault hunter he should keep his eyes on. Assuming that Zero had a face, he could tell that their expression was matching Lilith's right now.

"Y-yeah, I know, I..." Rhys stammered, taking a quick breath and trying to phrase his explanation in a way that would make these two want to kill him as little as possible. "I accidentally...downloaded an AI of Jack into my cyber—"

Before he could finish, Zero was across the room in a fraction of a second. Rhys barely had enough warning to duck back before he felt the blade end of Zero's energy sword press against his throat, not enough to break skin, but enough to make it clear that they _could_ at any moment. Zero's mask was reflective enough that Rhys could see his own terrified expression as the assassin's hand tightened around the hilt of their blade.

"Where is that AI now?" Zero asked, their tone low and each word emphasized, using six syllables instead of their usual five or seven.

"Gone, it-it's gone!" Rhys squeaked, not daring to breathe with a sharp weapon poised right next to his jugular. "Jack—he tried to kill me, so I took out my old cybernetics by hand and replaced _all_ of it. He's not here anymore."

"Where did you get it?" Lilith asked flatly. Rhys gasped as Zero's sword pressed closer to his neck.

"F-from a Hyperion ID chip that used to belong to this scientist that wanted to clone Jack," Rhys babbled. "The guy was dead, and the chip is probably destroyed now, too."

Lilith released a breath that she had apparently been holding, placing a hand on Zero's back. Zero relaxed instantly, as if they had been waiting for her signal. They stepped back until they were standing at her side again, but they kept the sword in their hand. Rhys assumed that their gaze never left him for a second.

"You caught me on a good day," Lilith said. "So I'm not going to ask Zero to decapitate you, as much as I know they would enjoy it. I'm going to let you tell me everything that happened with this AI. If I find out that you skipped any details, or if you lied to me about anything that happened, I'll drop your worthless Hyperion ass off the balcony. It's a twenty thousand foot drop to the ground."

Trying to ignore her last statement, Rhys nodded.

"I guess...it all started with a promotion."

**Author's Note:**

> s/t short while i get a feel for writing borderlands again


End file.
